Atoms of me and you
by All Galimatias
Summary: ...And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... A series of short stories concerning the crossover universe of Supernatural and His Dark Materials.
1. Chapter 1

Shalim settled when Dean was ten. Early, by most standards, but not really unexpected; he'd grown up quickly, after all. But the circumstances surrounding it made Dean resentful, for a while. He didn't tell anyone that his daemon had stopped changing for almost three weeks.

Shalim was rare in that she didn't settle into the form of a pure breed. Mostly, daemons settled as a pedigree animal, though often with a size or colour variant; Shalim was a combination of several different breeds, which was probably why Dean had gotten away with concealing that she'd settled for as long as he did. Curious children's daemons often combined forms while they were experimenting. Depending on what bit of her you looked at, Shalim was a little like an Alsatian, or a Doberman, maybe a Labrador, a Schnauzer or a Malinois. Viewed from a distance, she was sort of like a Great Dane, but more solid. The bottom line was that Shalim was a canine and she was huge— her back was only a few inches off being level with Dean's shoulder when she settled and was equal to his waist when he'd finished growing.

They didn't speak to each other for a few days after she first settled, not properly, because they both knew precisely why she'd taken that form; Dean wasn't sure how he felt about it. It was because Shalim had always taken the form of a large dog when Dad and Caisid where on a hunt without them, and Dean and Sam were alone in a motel room somewhere with no idea of when he'd be back. Never a combination of dogs, sure, but one of the big breeds, one of the guard dog breeds, or a herder; a fierce and capable protector. The form of his soul was a reflection of his role as Sam's brother, apparently a defining characteristic of who he was. It wasn't fair. He'd give everything for Sam, he would always do anything for his little brother, but did that have to mean that that was all he was? 'Everything and anything for Sam'?

Shalim didn't share his resentment, or his restlessness. For a moment, when she realised she'd settled, Shalim deflated, shrunk in on herself, which looked very strange in her new form.

"I'm a mongrel," she said, staring at herself in a motel-room mirror, with Dean watching her in the glass, and Sam and Ammon asleep in the single bed behind them both.

"Shalim…"

"No, this is good, this is great," she was brightening, puffing herself out to inspect her final body. She barred her impressive, wickedly sharp teeth in a test of a snarl, then the expression softened into a grin. "I was worried I'd be a bird, or a mouse or something, that I'd let you three down."

And that was it, as far as she was concerned. She understood why Dean was upset, of course she did, but she didn't see why he should be. This was what they wanted; to look after Sam and Ammon. In any case, hunter's daemons were almost always dogs; Caisid was one and so was Iva, Bobby's daemon. This was a good thing.

Ammon figured it out before Dean and Shalim told her, and before Caisid or Dad did. Sam and Dean were sitting on Dean's bed, Dean methodically checking through all the weaponry Dad had left behind, and Sam next to him, watching intently. Shalim was on Sam's bed, curled up on herself, with Ammon in the form of a burnt-red coloured rabbit on her back. Dean was halfway through talking the six year old through how to clean out a double barreled shotgun, when Ammon spoke up.

"You've settled now, haven't you?"

Dean froze, and Shalim rolled over, displacing the smaller daemon. "Yep," she replied, eyeing Ammon carefully.

Ammon nodded, looking back at her like she was trying to memorise precisely what the other daemon looked like. "You're very big," she said after a few moments.

Making a soft snuffling noise that Dean was beginning to recognise as his daemon's new laugh, Shalim shot out a paw and knocked the rabbit off the bed.

"Always going to be bigger than you," Shalim said cheerfully.

"I'll grow up and be bigger," Sam protested, practically falling over himself as he scrambled off the bed to find his daemon.

"Not a chance," Dean said firmly. "You'll be a baby for-" he broke off as Sam retrieved Ammon, dragging her up into his arms. The daemon had changed out of her rabbit form. She now looked exactly like a much, much smaller version of Shalim.

"I can't get that big," Ammon said, sounding disappointed, looking at Dean's daemon enviously.

"But we'll get bigger," Sam insisted, holding his daemon tightly. "You're very pretty, Shalim," he added shyly, after a seconds consideration.

His beautiful mongrel daemon preened, and Dean didn't pretend even to himself that the love and awe in Sam and Ammon's eyes didn't make him feel better.


	2. Chapter 2

When Sam's daemon settled when he was fourteen it raised absolute hell. Ammon had spent the years between being seven and twelve years old copying Shalim's form whenever it was convenient. She still flicked between shapes, of course, but Shalim's mongrel was effectively her default; it was the shape she took whenever she and Sam were sleeping, or staring out of the backseat window in the Impala. But then the tolerance she and Sam's had for the way of life Dad and Caisid had brought them up in had nose-dived, and with it had gone Sam's desire to grow up and be like Dean.

Since then Ammon had been a bird. All kinds of birds; including ones that had gone extinct. In any other household—any family that actually had a house, rather than a car and a collection of false identities—this would have been cause for concern. Daemon specialists researching the subject hadn't found any concrete proof on the matter, but it was widely accepted cultural knowledge that daemons who took on the forms of extinct breeds were a manifestation of latent suicidal tendencies within their humans, in the same way that daemons with physical handicaps, like a missing leg in their settled form, were thought to indicate a psychopath, or a mythical creature such as a dragon represent insanity. Neither John nor Caisid noticed, however, through their ignorance of fowl species or for some other reason neither Dean or Shalim liked to consider, so it was left to the latter pair to worry about.

All kinds of things could be read into Ammon's forms, but the most simple was Sam's desire to get out. To get out of the hunter life, the pack mentality, the always moving about and the eternal readiness to fight and protect; it could be that Ammon was a physical manifestation of the wings for flight that Sam wanted. Dean and Shalim reassured themselves that the daemon's flirtations with long-dead species was just a reflection that Sam would do anything to get to his white-picket fence dream, rather than an actual desire to kill himself. That hurt more than it healed, in some ways, but as long as Sam and Ammon were alive and whole, Dean and Shalim could forgive them anything.

When Ammon woke up one day as a gorgeous, black/grey/white tricolour husky, the first canine she's form she's had in two years, Sam started a shouting match with their father that lasted seventeen minutes and only concluded when Sam slammed out of the motel on Ammon's heels. It took his little brother storming past Dad on his way out for Dean to first realise that Sam would likely one day out-grow both of them. In more ways than just height, really.

Sam didn't blame his daemon, and Ammon didn't blame herself; they both blamed Dad and Caisid for not giving them any choice in who they became. Both saw it as a sign that they wouldn't be able to escape this pack of theirs, that they couldn't escape the family and its business. They both knew that the Winchester way of life was partly to blame, but they couldn't know that it was both nurture and nature involved; daemon hunting was in their blood, but the only cause they could see was John and it was to him that all their frustration was pinned. When Sam cited Shalim's form as evidence that neither of John's children had any choice in what happened to them, and that he was forcing an obligation down their necks that, Dean and his daemon couldn't say a word.

(Later, in the dark of a different motel room, Shalim told Caisid that being a hunter was what they wanted, and Dean didn't protest because he didn't know if it was a lie or not.)

This time, Sam and Ammon came back. They didn't show for almost a full twenty four hours, but they couldn't stay away too long. They were fourteen, after all, even if Sam did look on the stringy side of sixteen. There was no way they'd survive on their own that young, and there were other ties of course; sentiment that they couldn't throw off yet, love and affection that they couldn't sacrifice for the opportunity to control their own lives.

Dad and Caisid weren't in, had left hours before to God knows where in the Impala, so it was just Dean and Shalim, waiting in the light of late night TV. Dean didn't move when the pair slunk in the small hours, but Shalim leapt off the bed instantly and pulled painfully on their bond in her strain to reach Ammon until he got up. The two dogs pressed against each other for a second, sending a crashing wave of sorrydefiancepleaseunderstan d over both of them so that it was impossible to tell where which brother's emotion began and ended, the proximity of this physical reflection of their souls something like cathartic. Sam made a faint noise of relief and his lanky form noticeably slumped, mirroring Dean's rigid posture relax into a slouch. Shalim gave Ammon's ear a lick and the familiar sense of fraternity settled somewhere beneath Dean's ribs.

Dean gave Shalim an annoyed look when she jumped back up next to him anyway, which she returned with the added flavouring of reproach. Dean looked up at Sam, who was standing in the doorway like he was waiting for Dean to give him permission to come in. Or still waiting for Dean to start shouting. Ammon was on the second single bed, looking at her human as if he was being ridiculous. Which he was, Dean concurred, but the kid had been raised by their father, so he couldn't really comment. Instead Dean jerked his head back in acknowledgement, and Sam came quietly into the room to bury his hand in the fur at Ammon's neck.

The gesture looked unusual and strange; Dean had gotten used to Sam lifting a hand to stroke whatever bird-daemon was perched on his shoulder when he was feeling in need of reassurance. It looked familiar, though, in an odd sort of way, and it took Dean a moment to realise it was because that's what he did to Shalim, a subtle sort of cling to her ruff, when either of them were unhappy. His eyes shuttered, and a part of Dean wondered why he hadn't noticed how twisted around each other they still were, even as Sam started to try and stamp this part of his life out. The odd sort of gravity they'd had ever since Sam was small that came from the total dependence on another person as your anchor and identification when there was nothing else in your life that was permanent. Nothing but a father preoccupied with the mother you can only just remember.

"You've burnt out then," Dean said, but it was more of a question.

Sam shook his head, looking at Ammon. "I don't know."

Laying down again, Dean closed his eyes. "Whatever."

"I… Dean, please," said Sam, sounding small and far away.

Dean didn't say anything, but felt it as Shalim jumped up onto Sam's bed next to Ammon and used her huge form to take up the remaining space. Hovering just a moment, Sam dropped down onto Dean's bed and twisted his elongating frame up to put his feet up Dean's pillow. Someone's hand found the other's, upside down, and squeezed.

The late night programme droned on, and none of them spoke again until Dad and Caisid came in just before lunch the next day and announced a new hunt, and they were back on the road.


End file.
